Posts tagged with 'canonical'

Today we are announcing plans to shut down the Ubuntu One file services. This is a tough decision, particularly when our users rely so heavily on the functionality that Ubuntu One provides. However, like any company, we want to focus our efforts on our most important strategic initiatives and ensure we are not spread too thin.

Our strategic priority for Ubuntu is making the best converged operating system for phones, tablets, desktops and more. In fact, our user experience, developer tools for apps and scopes, and commercial relationships have been constructed specifically to highlight third party content and services (as opposed to our own); this is one of our many differentiators from our competitors. Additionally, the free storage wars aren’t a sustainable place for us to be, particularly with other services now regularly offering 25GB-50GB free storage. If we offer a service, we want it to compete on a global scale, and for Ubuntu One to continue to do that would require more investment than we are willing to make. We choose instead to invest in making the absolute best, open platform and to highlight the best of our partners’ services and content.

As of today, it will no longer be possible to purchase storage or music from the Ubuntu One store. The Ubuntu One file services will not be included in the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release, and the Ubuntu One apps in older versions of Ubuntu and in the Ubuntu, Google, and Apple stores will be updated appropriately. The current services will be unavailable from 1 June 2014; user content will remain available for download until 31 July, at which time it will be deleted.

We will work to ensure that customers have an easy path to download all their content from Ubuntu One to migrate to other personal cloud services. Additionally, we continue to believe in the Ubuntu One file services, the quality of the code, and the user experience, so will release the code as open source software to give others an opportunity to build on this code to create an open source file syncing platform.

Customers who have an active annual subscription will have their unused fees refunded. We will calculate the refund amount from today’s announcement, even though the service will remain available until 1 June and data available for a further two months.

We will contact customers separately with additional information about what to expect. We will also publish further blog posts with advice on how to download content and with details on the open sourcing of the code.

The shutdown will not affect the Ubuntu One single sign on service, the Ubuntu One payment service, or the backend U1DB database service.

We’ve always been inspired by the support, feedback and enthusiasm of our users and want to thank you for the support you’ve shown for Ubuntu One. We hope that you’ll continue to support us as together we bring a revolutionary experience to new devices.

Since launching the Ubuntu One music store on the web there has been a steady flow of traffic to the web store and away from the store embedded in Rhythmbox on Ubuntu. The music store in Rhythmbox is operated separately from the one on the web, which means it requires a fair amount of additional work to keep it running smoothly. In order to make the music store better for everyone, regardless of what device they may be using at any given moment, we’re focusing on the web music store and removing the store from Rhythmbox in Ubuntu 13.04 as well as from previous releases, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and 12.10 via a stable release update. With this change, all Ubuntu One music purchases will be made at https://one.ubuntu.com/music-store instead of in Rhythmbox. Your purchases will still automatically be delivered to your cloud storage, download to your computer and be available in Rhythmbox. Of course, if you have a music streaming subscription, you can also stream all your music from the web, Android, or iOS.

Last week we told you that we launched our App Developer Program. Today we’re pleased to announce our first Ubuntu One App Developer event. Our App Developer Program is open to everybody and on Thursday 1st of September we’re inviting any interested developers to an evening of talking Ubuntu One apps and a drink or two with our futures architect, Stuart Langridge, at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK from 7pm. If you’re interested in building apps for mobile, web or the desktop to work with or use Ubuntu One’s features, or you want to bring Ubuntu One to a new platform, or you just want to hear about what’s going on, come along!

We’re really looking forward to seeing you there on the 1st and hearing what imaginative Ubuntu One app ideas are out there…and helping you make them! To find out more about the Ubuntu One APIs we’ve already published, for file syncing and music streaming and data storage, take a look at https://one.ubuntu.com/developer/.

It’s been on it’s way for a while now, so we are pleased to announce that our new free Android files app is ready for download from the Android Market.

So what does this super new files app do? Well, Ubuntu One’s files app for Android gives you the freedom to take your files, photos and more with you and access them on the fly. It’s been picked as Pocket-lint’s ‘App of the Day’ today so see the full review here.

You can secure and manage your photos, files and folders directly from your Android device anywhere in the world. You can browse, select and download all your files and folders as well as upload and send files directly from your phone.

What’s really cool is that Ubuntu One files automatically backs up photographs taken from your Android phone’s camera directly to your Ubuntu One personal cloud. Giving you peace of mind knowing that all the great photos on your mobile are backed up and available for you to share. Speaking of sharing, you can do that directly from the app – just tap and hold on the file or photo you want to share and instantly post it straight to Facebook, Twitter, or your blog.

Other news, last week we submitted our new Music streaming app for iPhone to the app store. We’ll tell you more as soon as it’s available for download so keep your eye on our blog.

Last month was a big one for Ubuntu and Ubuntu One. For Ubuntu One, in addition to all the improvements we made in Ubuntu 11.04, we also released substantial improvements to contacts on the web, including Facebook import. Our attention now turns to contacts sync for mobile devices.

We’re working on completely revamping contacts sync for mobile to give you an overall better experience. The new service will work with mobile devices running iOS or Android operating systems. We decided to focus on these two operating systems so we can deliver the best user experience without having to limit functionality to the lowest common denominator. The new service will be free and available later this year. If you are interested in testing the new service, please add your email address to this form and we will provide you with more info once the service is ready for testing.

As of June 1, 2011 the current Ubuntu One contacts sync for mobile will no longer be active. We’re stopping support for our current service so we can focus our energy on launching a much better service sooner than we could otherwise.

What happens to my contacts?
Contacts will continue to sync between Evolution and Ubuntu One. Your contacts will still be available via the web. For those who use the current contacts sync service on their phone or with the Funambol plugin for Outlook/Thunderbird this means contacts will no longer sync with Ubuntu One after May 31, 2011.

What if I’m a mobile package subscriber and only use it for syncing contacts?
For those who have the Ubuntu One mobile package and only use it for contacts sync, please contact us and we will provide a refund for all your mobile package charges as well as cancel your mobile package subscription. For those who use music streaming, please continue to enjoy music streaming and you will have the ability to sync contacts later this year.

We realize this transition may leave some of you with further questions, if that’s the case please contact us.

Thanks for your patience. Now it’s back to work on getting the new mobile contacts service out ASAP.

As many of you will already know, today Ubuntu 11.04 introduced Unity, Ubuntu’s new interface, which is simpler, easier to use and more beautiful than previous editions of Ubuntu. We want to say a big well done to everyone who has contributed. For more on Ubuntu 11.04 see ubuntu.com.

Along with Unity there are some great improvements to Ubuntu One. Once upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 you will see that Ubuntu One is more easily accessible in the launcher. We gave Ubuntu One preferences an all new look, new features, and even a new name, Ubuntu One control panel. The control panel allows selective syncing so you can easily manage the cloud folders you want synced locally and easily view which folders have been shared with you.

Some other great news is that for some time now the team has been working hard to improve overall speed and performance. Many of you will notice this already and over the next few weeks, as we finish our server upgrades, everyone will be getting their files synced up to 200x faster. Yes, we’ve seen real world performance gains of up to 200x faster!

In addition to improvements in Ubuntu 11.04, we’ve also improved contacts on the web. For starters, there’s an all new look and feel that makes it faster and easier to manage your contacts. You can now delete and merge contacts in bulk. Not content with plain old merging, we also added smart merging. Click the new Find & merge duplicates button and it will find any duplicate contacts and allow you to merge them in one click.

The enhancements to contacts are great, but it would be even better if you could pull in your contacts from Facebook. Now you can. Seamless import from Facebook includes your friends’ profile pictures, first, middle and last name, birthday, ‘about me’ and any website they have listed. What’s really cool is it will merge existing contacts automatically for you.

These are exciting times for Ubuntu One. Our sync services have become a reliable part of our users’ daily activities, people are raving over our new music streaming service, and we’re close to launching full-fledged clients for Windows and Android – effectively exposing the extended world of Ubuntu to millions of users for the first time.

We decided to dress ourselves up for the occasion… so our design team jumped at the opportunity and did a fantastic job in coming up with a vibrant new look that captures the choice, convenience and security benefits delivered by Ubuntu One.

Here’s a not-so-sneak preview (roll out is happening as I type):

We’re also thrilled about the “iconology” representing each Ubuntu One service:

File Sync – the easiest way to keep your files safe and accessible anywhere, anytime – for free on all platforms supported (2GB of storage also included). Currently available on Ubuntu and Windows (in Beta) computers, on the Web and very soon on Android mobile devices.

Music Streaming – our most popular premium service allows you to take your entire music collection wherever you go, without the inconvenience of tethering mobile phones or worrying about local storage. Supports .mp3 and *very soon* iTunes (.mp4) and .ogg formats.

Contacts Sync – We’re revamping our Contacts Sync service! Soon, you will be able to sync your Facebook friends, Gmail and mobile phone contacts – with brand new contacts management functionality available from our Web UI. Integration with Evolution Mail on the Ubuntu desktop is also supported.

Music Store – Buy music from the most popular labels and artists and get it delivered directly to your personal cloud. Available only on Ubuntu computers, integrated with the Banshee and Rhythmbox music players.

Bookmarks Sync – a convenient way to keep your Firefox bookmarks in sync across Ubuntu computers.

Notes Sync – If you’re an avid user of Tomboy Notes, sync your notes and access them via the Web UI or across your Ubuntu computers. Available only on Ubuntu computers, integrated with the Tomboy Notes application.

Now that we’re all dressed up, look out for a number of exciting changes to our Web UI, Ubuntu and Windows control panels as a result of an intensive week of user testing – but more to come on this soon…